15 July 2014

Review: Errings by Peter Streckfus

I was reading Errings around the time I had a conversation with my
writing group about accessibility and poetry. I usually am one to say that
poetry absolutely needs to be readily accessible – that if poets use esoteric
references, language, form; if they make the reader “work” too hard for
meaning, they are running the risk of readers closing their books never to be
picked up again or placing them in the library donation pile. However, I came
away from that conversation with some new viewpoints to consider. Maybe a
little work, a little more thinking to “get” a poem or a collection is healthy,
a good brain exercise that more people should try more often.

Errings offers the best of both the bay side and ocean side of the
street. Some of its poems, readers can immediately enter and understand, and
others take a bit more archeological digging. Readers will find poems quiet as
a bay sunset and as turbulent as Atlantic waves. At times, it feels rooted in
terra firma, then it takes a quick turn, diving deeply into ocean waters only
to rise from the waves soaring into the otherwordly. It is brimming with life
and oxygen; death and silence; the in-between and surreal.

The collection
is divided into three sections in which the reader will find a variety of form
and style: lyrical lines and prosy ones; poems that span pages and one that is
condensed into four lines; and found words and phrases not only from an
unpublished manuscript written by the poet's father, but also from a commentary
written by three people that spans 130 years.

The first part of the book includes the two poems that I kept circling back to
as I was reading and as I was putting this review together—“Videos of Fish” and
“Erring.”

“Videos of Fish”
is broken into four sections: Body of Water, Body of Moving Light , Body of
Dreams, and Body of Fish. There is a sense of distance and
detachment in this sequence, but that is exactly what draws me in, that makes
me contemplate Streckfus's content and imagery; what he is trying to say about
life, death, relationships and our ties to history? What of present tense of
the humanness?

From Body of
Water:

...As you lay dying,

I gave you this – drops for your
tongue,

subtle rider of words, mute body of
words:

here, a plastic straw to carry water
to your lips.

And from Body
of Fish:

Come to the surface of the screen
with your light

and oxygen holes and press them for
moments

against the page – as if seeking to
pass through it.

“Erring” spans
24 pages and includes typed pages with handwritten notes and sections blocked
out from Streckus's fathers unpublished manuscript, Two Golden Earrings, words
and phrases adapted from the manuscript. The result is a poem with both stark
and beautiful language that reads like an avant-garde film. As I read it, I
wondered what it was like for the poet to meander the words of his father to
find the poem, his own perspective within them.

Many of the
lines that pulled me under in “Erring” were ones that stood alone on a page:

On page 17:

I will dictate your prayers.

Page 31:

You shall be my page -

Page 36:

You leaned forward and put the
questions with living breath

right into my ear.

And one of my
favorite stanzas of the poem on page 22:

This is how we learn.

Everything appears as light and
images.

Rainbow bodies and bodies of
darkness and water.

Just like with Sara Michas-Martin’s Grey
Matter, the more I returned to Errings the more the author’s focus
became clearer. I watched Streckfus adjusting his lens, pushing it to the line
of blur in some areas and bringing it close into crisp focus in others. This
led me to see meaning and images I hadn’t on my first read through, to change
my opinions slightly on accessibility, and on how far I am willing to go to
understand and experience a poet's intentions in a body of work.

If you find yourself somewhat lost at sea in this collection on first read, do
not swim immediately back to shore. Tread water boldly and curiously with all
senses alert and wide open. You will eventually find your way in the language
and will be glad you took the extra time.